Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Craig's Guest Post

A couple of days ago I posted my frustrations about the EPA backtracking on important environmental recommendations that would protect Texas drinking water from uranium contamination and our air more generally from mercury emissions.

[Excerpted] When Uranium Energy Corp. sought
permission to launch a large-scale mining project in Goliad County, Texas, it
seemed as if the Environmental Protection Agency would stand in its way.

To get the ore out of the ground,
the company needed a permit to pollute a pristine supply of underground
drinking water in an area already parched by drought.

...EPA scientists feared that
radioactive contaminants would flow from the mining site into water wells used
by nearby homes.

Uranium Energy said the pollution would remain contained, but
resisted doing the advanced scientific testing and modeling the government
asked for to prove it.

The plan appeared to be dead on
arrival until late 2011, when Uranium Energy hired Heather Podesta, a lobbyist
and prolific Democratic fundraiser whose pull with the Obama administration
prompted The Washington Post to name her the Capitol's latest "It girl."

Podesta -- the sister-in-law of John
Podesta, who co-chaired President Obama's transition team -- appealed directly to the EPA's second in command,
Bob Perciasepe, pressing the agency's highest-level administrators to get
directly involved and bring the agency's local staff in Texas back to the table
to reconsider their position, according to emails obtained by ProPublica
through the Freedom of Information Act.

By the end of 2012, the EPA reversed
its position in Goliad, approving an exemption allowing Uranium Energy to
pollute the aquifer, though in a somewhat smaller area than was originally
proposed. [end excerpt]

Craig notes the EPA has repeatedly failed to protect human health, as illustrated by the failure to protect 9-11 responders. Accordingly, he writes:

That business about Texas groundwater pollution and corporate influence via
Podesta --only adds to charges of malfeasance and non-feasance lodged against the EPA.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).